Page 190 – Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog

24
Jan

EPA Approves Misleading “Cause Marketing” Labels

(Beyond Pesticides, January 24, 2007) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved the display of promotions for causes or charities on labels of pesticides, disinfectants and other commercial poisons, according to agency documents released on Monday by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As a result, these products may now feature tie-ins with charitable organizations and marketing slogans, including the Red Cross symbol, on their labels. Pesticide and disinfectant labels are intended to be devoted primarily to consumer safety and usage information.

The policy change came in response to a request from the Clorox Company to advertise a pledge that it will donate a small percentage of the retail purchase price of its bleach products to the Red Cross. EPA dropped earlier objections following a meeting in July between top agency and corporate officials, according to an EPA briefing provided in early December to state pesticide agency officials.

At Clorox’s urging, EPA will allow placement of the phrases “Dedicated to a healthier world” and “Help Clorox raise $1M for the Red Cross,” as well as the use of the Red Cross logo on both the front and back panels, on five Clorox products.

“Thanks to EPA, even the most dangerous chemical can now wrap itself in a cloak of wholesomeness, featuring claims that it helps the planet, benefits sick children or even saves the whales,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that the new agency cause marketing option will be open to every manufacturer of regulated products. “EPA is squandering its limited regulatory resources to referee promotional slogans rather than protecting consumer health.”

Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), EPA regulates the content of labels on registered pesticides, rat poisons, fungicides and anti-microbial agents, such as bleach. Agency guidelines emphasize safety and usage information and discourage any “symbols implying safety or nontoxicity, such as a Red Cross or a medical seal of approval (caduceus).”

“EPA’s concession to Clorox appears to violate the spirit, if not the letter, of its own consumer protection guidelines,” Mr. Ruch added. “Critical safety warnings may be drowned out by purely promotional visual clutter.”

Under the emerging policy, “cause marketing” labels would not be permanent but would be limited “to a specific time interval negotiated between the charity and the registrant,” according to the EPA briefing. In addition, EPA would police the legitimacy of charities involved and would require chemical makers to “certify that all references to the donation plan and any charity participation will be consistent with Better Business Bureau guidelines.” EPA would also prohibit any “direct or implied statement that the charity sponsors or endorses the product” and require “a disclaimer to this effect on the label.”

“EPA has embarked on a slippery slope that enmeshes the federal government in policing the details of commercial speech in ways that yield little or no public benefit,” Mr. Ruch concluded. “If a chemical company sincerely wants to foster good works, it can simply make a donation, perhaps anonymously, to the charity of its choice.”

Source: PEER

Posted in Pesticide Regulation by: admin
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23
Jan

Scientists Call for “Inert” Ingredient Disclosure

(Beyond Pesticides, January 23, 2007) Citing an extensive body of literature illustrating the concern over related human and environmental health effects, recent commentary in Environmental Health Perspectives continues the call for improvements in pesticide regulation and “inert” ingredient disclosure.

The authors, Caroline Cox, Ph.D., research director at the Center for Environmental Health, and Michael Surgan, Ph.D., chief scientist in the Office of the Attorney General of New York State, highlight the regulatory weaknesses that allow the “inert” ingredients in pesticide formulations to go largely untested. In response, they are calling for a pesticide registration process that requires full assessment of formulations and full disclosure on product labels.

“Inert” refers to ingredients in a pesticide formulation that have been added to the active ingredient to serve a variety of functions, such as acting as solvents, surfactants, or preservatives. However, the common misconception is that “inert” ingredients are physically, chemically, or biologically inactive substances. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has stated that “many consumers have a misleading impression of the term ”˜inert ingredient,’ believing it to mean water or other harmless ingredients.”

The commentary provides evidence that “inerts” are often far from harmless and need to be examined closely for environmental, wildlife and public health effects. Further, they present an urgent need for “inert” regulation and disclosure due to the ubiquitous nature of pesticides in the environment, pointing to data that shows pesticides have been found in the United States in all streams, “in >70% of common foods, and in over half of adults and children.”

The following are excerpts summarizing some of the major concerns identified regarding “inerts:”

Of the 20 toxicologic tests required (or conditionally required) to register a pesticide in the United States, only seven short-term acute toxicity tests use the pesticide formulation; the rest are done with only the active ingredient. The medium- and long-term toxicity tests that explore end points of significant concern (cancer, reproductive problems, and genetic damage, for example) are conducted with the active ingredient alone.

Numerous studies indicate that inert ingredients may enhance the toxicity of pesticide formulations to the nervous system, the cardiovascular system, mitochondria, genetic material, and hormone systems.

Inert and active ingredients can interact to diminish the protective efficacy of both clothing and skin, reduce the efficacy of washing, and increase persistence and off-target movement of pesticides.

The severity of varied toxic effects of active ingredients of pesticides in nontarget plants, animals, and microorganisms can be enhanced by the inert ingredients with which they are formulated.

The article comes on the heals of an “inerts” petition that was filed last August by the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, Beyond Pesticides and others. Attorneys general from 14 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands have submitted a companion petition to EPA as well.

For more information, see the full article in last month’s issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.

TAKE ACTION: Tell EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson (email: [email protected], phone: 202-564-4700, fax: 202-501-1450) that you have a right to know what ingredients are used in pesticide products and that EPA has a duty to fully test pesticide formulations.

Posted in Pesticide Regulation by: admin
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22
Jan

Wal-Mart Accused of Labeling Nonorganic Food as Organic, Again

(Beyond Pesticides, January 22, 2007) When the staff at The Cornucopia Institute, an organic watchdog group, surveyed Wal-Mart stores around the country last September, analyzing the giant retailer’s announcement that they would begin selling a wide variety of organic food at just a 10% mark-up over similar conventional products, they were surprised to discover widespread problems with signage misrepresenting nonorganic food as “organic.”

Now, four months after informing the company of the problems, which could be interpreted as consumer fraud, and two months after filing a formal legal complaint with U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), many of the deceptive signs at Wal-Mart stores are still in place. “It is unconscionable that rather than correct these problems, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. instead responded to our concerns by attacking our comparatively modest public interest group in an effort to discredit our organization in the media,” said Mark Kastel, co-director of the Wisconsin-based Institute. “It is not as if a product recall or store remodeling would have been required to correct Wal-Mart’s deceptive consumer practices. They could have simply sent out an e-mail to store managers and corrected the problem instantly.”

New store inspections throughout Wisconsin have found that Wal-Mart stores are still selling nonorganic yogurt and sugar identified as organic, and designated organic produce sections continue displaying many nonorganic items, among other widespread abuses. The Cornucopia Institute again contacted USDA about the ongoing problem but the agency could not confirm that any enforcement action was imminent on the federal level. Cornucopia then filed a consumer fraud complaint with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection on January 13, 2007.

“We were very impressed with the immediate and professional response we received from the Wisconsin regulators,” stated Will Fantle, Cornucopia’s research director. “Within hours officials from the state contacted us to confirm some of the information we submitted and we verified our past interactions with the USDA for them.”

USDA’s organic program has been widely criticized for, among other management problems, not attending to questions of improprieties in a timely manner. In one case, a Florida orange grower who could not document that the oranges and orange juice he was selling were produced organically. More than two years later, pending USDA action, the products were still on the market and being purchased by unsuspecting consumers.

“The vast majority of all organic farmers and food marketers operate with a high degree of organic integrity. These abuses, and the lack of responsible enforcement by the USDA, endangers the credibility of the organic label for all of us,” said Tom Willey of T & D Willey Farms of Madera, California, an organic fresh market vegetable producer.

“Wal-Mart cannot be allowed to sell organic food ”˜on the cheap’ because they lack the commitment to recruit qualified management or are unwilling to properly train their store personnel. This places ethical retailers, their suppliers, and organic farmers at a competitive disadvantage,” Mr. Kastel said.

A number of other organic food retailers throughout the country, including Whole Foods Markets and many of the nation’s member-owned grocery cooperatives, have gone to the effort to become certified organic in terms of the handling of their products and have invested heavily in staff training to help them understand organic food production and merchandising concerns.

“Our management and our employees know what organic means,” said Lindy Bannister, general manager at The Wedge Cooperative in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “If Wal-Mart intends to get into organics, they can’t be allowed to misidentify ”˜natural’ foods as organic to unsuspecting consumers.” The Wedge, the largest single store food cooperative in the nation, was one of the first retailers to go through the USDA organic certification process.

Cornucopia’s complaints ask USDA and Wisconsin regulators to fully investigate the allegations of organic food misrepresentation. The farm policy organization has shared their evidence, including photographs and notes, from multiple stores in Wisconsin and in many other states, with the agency’s investigators. Fines of up to $10,000 per violation for proven incidents of organic food misrepresentation are provided for in federal organic regulations.

“The business practices at Wal-Mart are quite disturbing and certainly incompatible with the values that have transformed the organic food industry into a lucrative marketplace,” said Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association. “We have called today for a boycott of Wal-Mart by organic shoppers until such time as the integrity of their merchandising and product line can be ascertained.”

This past September, The Cornucopia Institute also accused Wal-Mart of cheapening the value of the organic label by sourcing products from industrial-scale factory-farms and developing countries, such as China.

The Institute released a white paper, Wal-Mart Rolls Out Organic Products””Market Expansion or Market Delusion?, that concluded Wal-Mart was poised to drive down the price of organic food in the marketplace by inventing a “new” organic””food from corporate agribusiness, factory-farms, and cheap imports of questionable quality.

“If unchecked, Wal-Mart’s alleged misrepresentation of organic food, along with their procurement practices, and cheapening the meaning behind the organic label, could endanger the livelihoods of many farmers and family business owners who have labored to build organics into a lucrative $16 billion a year industry,” Mr. Kastel lamented.

Posted in Alternatives/Organics, Corporations, Wal-Mart by: admin
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19
Jan

Farm Pesticides Associated with Risks for Community Residents

(Beyond Pesticides, January 19, 2007) A recent study conducted in Manitoba, Canada, has found that residents in communities in which agricultural pesticides have been applied heavily are at a higher risk for eye disorders and for giving birth to children with abnormalities or birth defects. Significantly, these results are not confined to those who work with pesticides directly””such as farmers””but are relevant among entire populations.

“Often studies are done on a particular people like, let’s say, the group of farmers who have direct contact with pesticides,” says Patricia Martens, Ph.D., director of the Manitoba Center for Health Policy. “This study was looking at the entire population.”

Jennifer Magoon, a graduate student from the University of Manitoba, looked at Manitoba’s database of public health records, comparing records from areas of intensive agricultural pesticide use with areas that use little. She studied 323,368 health records from the years 2001 to 2004, which included pharmaceutical files, physician claims, and hospital separations. What she has found are “statistically significant” links between higher pesticide use and health problems.

She has found that, compared with areas of average pesticide use, the chance for abnormalities in babies born in high-use areas rose four percentage points for males and three and a half percentage points for females. Abnormalities include low birth weight, jaundice, and respiratory ailments. Additionally, the chance for eye disorders increased nearly two percentage points and the risk for mild to severe birth defects rose a percentage point in males.

Although the abstract of the study says “regular pesticide use in crop farming, especially insecticides, may be adversely affecting the health of the rural residents of Southern Manitoba,” Ms. Magoon also points out the problem with establishing a causal relationship between pesticide use and health effects. “Too many factors exist that can govern a person’s health to be able to draw such cause-and-effect conclusions, even in a study of considerable scope,” she says. However, despite the care with which scientists must choose their words, public health officials find the results compelling. One rural health official says the study continues “the work of understanding how chemicals might be adversely connected to rural life.”

Of particular concern are insecticides. “It was really insecticides that were what stood out,” says Ms. Magoon. Insecticide use is highest in Manitoba’s southwest corner; they are used often on potato, spring wheat, and canola crops. Some common agricultural insecticides include chlorpyrifos, which is linked to ADHD and delayed peripheral neuropathy, and permethrin, which is a neurotoxin and immunotoxin.

Public health officials hope that this information will help them to continue to make connections between environmental exposures and health endpoints.

Source: Winnipeg Free Press

Posted in Disease/Health Effects by: admin
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18
Jan

Research Shows Pesticide Accumulation at High Altitudes

(Beyond Pesticides, January 18, 2007) A new study conducted in Costa Rica’s mountain forests indicates that surprisingly high concentrations of pesticides are accumulating far above the low altitudes at which they are used. Previously thought to be safe from pesticides applied to distant agricultural areas, some remote mountain forests of Costa Rica were found to have pesticide levels almost ten times greater than those in low-lying areas closer to farms and plantations.

The study, led by University of Toronto, Scarborough professor Frank Wania, Ph.D., measured air and soil pesticide levels at 23 sites across Costa Rica in order to produce a model to predict potential accumulation of chemicals at high altitudes. The insecticide endosulfan and the fungicide chlorothalonil were found in the largest concentrations, with up to 1 part per billion (ppb) of chlorothalonil and 3 ppb endosulfan in soil.

The high concentrations can be explained by a process in which polluted air above the farms and plantations is pushed up into the mountains, where it then cools and becomes polluted rainwater or fog. The hydrophilic nature of modern pesticides makes the occurrence of this phenomenon much more likely; as Crispin Halsall, Ph.D., of Lancaster University (U.K.) explains, “Most currently used pesticides are quite soluble, unlike some of the older organochlorine pesticides. So they will dissolve into rain more readily than the hydrophobic pesticides of the past.”

The significance of high concentrations of pesticides at high altitudes is manifold. For one, the headwaters for water reservoirs often begin at high altitudes, meaning higher pesticide levels in the water supply. For another, there will be (and already are) negative affects on biodiversity. This study has helped to shed light on shrinking amphibian populations at high altitudes, which previously had been explained by a combination of climate change, parasitic chytrid infection, and chemical use. Scientists could not understand why areas with little human intervention would experience higher amphibian extinction rates. “There tends to be a pattern of more extinction at high elevations, which is tricky to explain because most of the human activity is at low elevations. We might have an explanation, because pesticide concentrations are higher at high altitude,” Dr. Wania says.

These issues are by no means exclusive to Costa Rica. “There is a whole series of mountain environments which are going to be susceptible to transport of pesticides,” Dr. Halsall adds, citing sensitive ecosystems in the Himalayas, Alps, and the Sierra Nevadas.

This research is consistent with a previous study of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains by Southern Illinois University’s Don Sparling. His research team’s 2001 paper in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry reported on residues of endosulfan and organophosphates in amphibians and found increasing pesticide concentrations with higher altitudes.

The hope is that these studies will expand our general understanding of how localized pollution may have far-reaching effects. “With currently used pesticides, most risk assessment is focused on the local environment and fails to take into account the subsequent evaporation or transport of the chemicals” to distant, sensitive locations, Dr. Halsall says. Dr. Wania agrees, “We tend to think if we set land aside and leave it alone, that this protects it. But that may not be enough if we can’t prevent contaminants from depositing or accumulating.”

Source: Environmental Science & Technology Online News

Posted in Chemicals, Chlorothalonil, Endosulfan, International, Water, Wildlife/Endangered Sp. by: admin
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17
Jan

California Pesticide Regulation Budget To Increase

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) will be able to step up pesticide regulation this year due to a significant increase in its 2007 budget, resulting in the largest availability of funding in fifteen years and more resources to direct to enforcement and education of pesticide laws.

DPR’s 2007 budget grew by $3 million, thanks to a law passed last year allowing the collection of fees from wholesale pesticide sales. DPR’s $69 million budget is fully funded by fees imposed on pesticide sellers and similar funds, rather than the state’s general fund. Until last year’s law included large-scale commercial sellers like Wal-Mart, Costco, and Home Depot, revenues were mostly derived from agricultural sellers. This is DPR’s largest budget since it’s inception in 1991, and is comparable to the inflation-adjusted budget from 2001, before California’s severe budget cuts.

Among other specific uses for the new funds will be the hiring of six new enforcement officials, and a four percent increase in enforcement funds to county agricultural commissioners. Grants will be renewed for the first time since 2003, potentially helping growers find alternatives to methyl bromide, an internationally phased-out fumigant of which the United States is annually granted usage by members of the Montreal Protocol (for more on this, click here).

DPR will also focus new funds to “develop mitigation measures, adopt statewide rules, develop better worker and physician outreach programs, and take pesticide product registration actions. Reducing farmworker illnesses, long a priority of California’s pesticide regulatory program, has also taken on new urgency with imposition of environmental justice requirements.”

“This budget will put us in the best position that we’ve been in for some time to help protect the public, the environment and the regulated community. We’re now getting to the point that we have the resources to enforce the laws,ï¿½” said DPR director Mary-Ann Warmerdam. “With this support, we’ll aim for zero — no more major pesticide incidents on the farm or in urban settings.” Roughly 50 major incidents are reported annually in the state.

Ms. Warmerdam went on to say that the department’s aim is to avoid bans on common and dangerous chemicals like pyrethroids and fumigants, and instead control usage to reduce the risks associated with them. To facilitate that goal, the new budget includes a new position to “evaluate mitigation measures for chlorpyrifos and pyrethroids pesticides.”

Environmental groups are reacting positively to DPR’s recent actions. “They are doing a pretty good job of putting the money where people think there is the most need for it,” according to Susan Kegley, senior scientist with the Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA). However, “Some things need to change in the way that people are applying pesticides if we are to get to zero incidents. We think the best way is to reduce pesticide use overall.”

Source: Los Angeles Times

For DPR’s press release on its “Zero Major Incidents” plan, click here. To see the 2007-2008 Budget Highlights, click here.

Posted in California, Pesticide Regulation, State/Local by: admin
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16
Jan

NJ Groups Oppose Lifting 20-Year Ban on Chemical Gypsy Moth Control

(Beyond Pesticides, January 16, 2007) A proposal is underway within New Jersey’s Department of Agriculture (DOA) to lift a 20-year ban on the use of Dimilin (diflubenzuron) for gypsy moth suppression. The State’s DOA is proposing to amend its regulations (N.J.A.C. 2:23) to permit the synthetic chemical pesticide to be aerially sprayed over forested residential areas (estimated to be 50,000 acres) in 14 counties where egg mass counts are over 4,000 per acre. In addition, the Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Division of Parks and Forestry may propose using Dimilin in state park areas where the egg masses are 4,000 per acre or more — potentially treating up to an additional 28,000 acres.The New Jersey Environmental Federation (NJEF) has taken action to stop the plan. In a letter co-signed by an additional 25 organizations to the Commissioners of DEP and DOA, they state, “While gypsy moth is a nuisance pest and can contribute to oak tree mortality, it is not a human health threat, nor a disease vector. We believe that given the potential harm to human health and biodiversity by the chemical pesticide Dimilin, the Departments should err on the side of caution and stand by their regulations that have been in effect for more than twenty years.”

NJEF will be meeting with the governor’s staff this coming week to request intervention. “New Jersey ‘s governor should affirm the 20 year ban on aerial spraying of toxic pesticides over homes, schools and parks, not reverse it. The human and ecological risks of chemical pesticides are not worth the temporary relief they give from insect problems like gypsy moth,” says Jane Nogaki, NJEF’s pesticide program coordinator.

Concerns over this proposal arise from the potential effects on human health and biodiversity from the product Dimilin and its active ingredient diflubenzuron, as well as the aerial method of application. Diflubenzuron, a haloaromatic substituted urea (chlorinated diphenyl compound), acts as a chemical growth regulator that inhibits chitin formation in invertebrates, including, but not limited to, gypsy moth caterpillars. Diflubenzuron has also been shown to affect vertebrate species.

Non-target effects of diflubenzuron include adverse environmental effects on freshwater and estuarine marine invertebrates, requiring a 150-foot buffer to waterways, and the human risk from its metabolite, PCA (p-chloroaniline), a class B2 carcinogen (probable human carcinogen).

Dimilin, an endocrine disruptor, causes reduced testosterone production in birds. In humans, it could cause methemoglobinemia, also known as blue baby syndrome. It persists at toxic levels for up to four months, which makes it more likely to affect non-target organisms and expose humans in and near the spray area through drift and runoff.

Aerial spraying poses its own risks from drift and the inherent danger of low flying aircraft. The proposed DOA aerial spray areas are all in forested residential areas, and inevitably direct human exposure occurs. New Jersey public policy has generally not supported aerial application of broad-spectrum pesticides over residential areas except in extreme circumstances like the threat of West Nile virus from mosquitoes. DEP’s own pesticide regulations ban aerial spraying of broad-spectrum pesticides for non-agricultural purposes. An exemption can be made for agricultural, health or environmental emergencies (N.J.A.C.7:30-10 (t).1.). DOA will likely be applying for that exemption.

Since l985, DOA and DEP have used only Bt, a biological pesticide with no known mammalian toxicity, as the pesticide of choice for gypsy moth suppression. DOA’s regulations explicitly state that DOA “select the most efficacious non-chemical insecticide (Bacillus thuringiensis).” However, now there is a claim that gypsy moths have become resistant to Bt, a common occurrence with pesticides.

Without human intervention, gypsy moth populations rise and fall in cycles, and are subject to collapse due to a naturally occurring fungus. Due to two years of very dry springs, this fungus has not been adequate to suppress the moths. Spraying, however, has a questionable impact on the gypsy moth cycle. In fact, some scientists believe spraying may actually prolong this cycle.

Source: New Jersey Environmental Federation

Posted in Bt, Chemicals, Diflubenzuron, Gypsy Moth, New Jersey, Pests, State/Local by: admin
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